It soon switched off – because the days of the manual transmission are numbered. Starting next year, Volkswagen will only be offering its two models, the Passat and the Tiguan, with an automatic transmission. Mercedes is also gradually converting its fleet to automatic. However, the two companies are only mentioned as representative of a fundamental change in transmission technology in the entire automotive industry.
In 2000, manual transmissions accounted for a good 80 percent of new car registrations in Germany. It has halved over the past 20 years, according to figures from Deutsche Automobil Treuhand (DAT). In return, the share of automatic vehicles grew to around 60 percent. The trend towards automation and the pace of market penetration continued – and this for several reasons.
Until well into the 1990s, automatic transmissions were considered sluggish, expensive and associated with excessive fuel consumption. However, modern technologies such as the dual-clutch transmission eliminated these disadvantages. “Nowadays, automatic transmissions are more efficient than manual transmissions,” says Michael Ebenhoch, head of development for drive technologies at ZF. “They change gears faster and tend to use even less fuel because they shift intelligently.” With a dual-clutch transmission, gear changes take place without any interruption in traction.
Higher efficiency, more comfort
In addition to the higher efficiency, the automatic offers significantly more comfort and safety when driving, adds Kurt Bartels, Vice President of the Federal Union of Driving Instructor Associations: “You can keep both hands on the steering wheel and have to operate one less pedal.” Automatic seems to make driving easier. However, this only applies to the choice of gear and the clutch pedal, because shifting gears is only a small part of driving. “The automatic eliminates one action, with the driving assistants several more are added,” says Bartels. In addition, many of the assistance systems that intervene in driving only work optimally in combination with automatic transmission, such as adaptive cruise control. Without one, the other technology is hardly possible.
The DAT data also show that the more powerful a car is, the higher the level of equipment with automatic transmissions. The upper class is now almost completely equipped with an automatic transmission, and most SUVs also shift gears largely automatically. Even in the middle class, at least the vehicles of the premium manufacturers are to a large extent automatic, and even in the compact class automatic is on the rise, according to the DAT experts.
Small cars are less often equipped with automatics to keep the price and weight of the car down. Because automatic transmissions have more components than manual transmissions and are therefore heavier. They also consist of more individual parts, which lead to more complex functions. This makes the automatic more expensive compared to the manual transmission. In the case of the Golf, the most frequently sold car in Germany, the price difference is around 2,000 euros. This is a common surcharge for the automatic, even with other manufacturers.
Some automobile manufacturers build their own transmissions, others buy them in, and a third group combines both variants. Most manufacturers will soon stop further developing traditional gear technology. “We are not developing the manual transmission any further,” says ZF development manager Ebenhoch. The manufacturer from Lake Constance and other transmission manufacturers are concentrating on automatic transmissions with up to nine gears for combustion engines and hybrids. Depending on the drive concept and vehicle class, other manufacturers use more or fewer gears. But that will no longer play a role in the future.
Because the trend towards electrification of the automobile ultimately means the complete end of the transmission as it is used in combustion engines today. “This step takes place in two stages,” says Ebenhoch. In hybrid vehicles, automatic transmissions are the only sensible solution, because a person cannot shift gears in the correct speed range when the combustion engine and electric motor are combined. An electronic controller does. The second step: pure electric cars usually drive with a one-speed transmission with a reduction stage that only reduces the engine speed of the electric machine to the wheels. “Such reduction gears are much simpler than the gears that are installed today,” says Ebenhoch.
Novice drivers often drive manual transmissions
With electromobility, the classic gearbox in cars is becoming less important. Only manufacturers of sports cars like Porsche use automatic two-speed gearshifts so that the car can be accelerated more quickly from a standstill and the engine speed can be reduced at high speeds. The reduction increases the range because the power consumption drops.
Today, the majority of newly registered vehicles are still equipped with internal combustion engines and mostly with automatic transmissions. “But there are still a lot of hand-operated used cars, with novice drivers often buying such cars first for cost reasons,” says driving instructor Bartels. Therefore, he considers it important that manual driving is still learned, especially by learner drivers who will subsequently drive such a car. Basically, novice drivers who have passed their test in a car with a manual transmission are also allowed to drive an automatic. However, anyone who completes the test in a vehicle with an automatic transmission is only allowed to drive an automatic transmission afterwards. “In this case, I recommend switching skills training with a final test,” says Bartels. This training has been possible since April 2021 and comprises a total of ten hours.